Gone, Again... ( Random Adventures in Oz )

.

so it was a bit before 8am on the wednesday morning... i'd walked back down to bike...

not sure how many times i dropped the bike... i fugure i probably did.. it was a 5 or so months back now...

anyway, i finally got the bike up to the next landing... from there to my camp it was a little flatter so i got to tent
and quickly packed camp... wasnt to keen on getting snowed on in here... and i wasnt out just yet..........

it started raining...

so i loaded bike then continued the climb.... a figured from GPS that i only had around 200m to climb... and about 8km of riding till this track hit a larger track.... from there i'd probably head the 80-odd kms back to Licola and see if i couldnt get that cabin again... sit out the snow, work out just how leaky tent was etc.. oh and dry boots etc....

so after packing i was off...

but it was only a matter of about 50m before the next steep climb

anyway a fair bit of throttle and i was bouncing on up the mountain.... more luck than anything had me bouncing from one rock to the next, missing most of the eroded ditches, washouts etc..

that was of course untill i hit a steeper lip on the track.... a little more juice so i didnt stall getting up it..

and up she came... :eek1

all happened bloody quickly but before i could blink the bike was vertical.... then over vertical....

then i was off the back and the bike was coming back down to earth...

not sure how it didnt land on me... but it didnt

never flipped a bike before...

i'd landed on my arse on a fairly large rock.... that hurt...

engine was still going so i got up and hit the kill switch...





hmmm, what to do....




.

Nice parking, pal. You don't deserve such a nice bike. Glad to see you've at least washed it a couple of times.
Sorry I wasn't there to prevent you from drinking VB. Not good. Not good at all.
Hey, PM me if you're interested in a trip to the MotoGP. Via the Grampians and Otways.

Somehow I could just feel that coming .......ouch!

You are so lucky that you were not under that bike when it came crashing back to earth!

........so (if you don't mind me askin) what is driving you to push your remaining quantum of life's finite quantity of sheer luck?

I would rather not see this thread suddenly end.

..................... :ddog






Looking forward how you got out off there .

Keep it coming!

Hey!... if i remember corectly.... the last time i lost an indicator was when you took it off.....with your head!

Sounds good, Grampians and Otways are great places to ride... but No can do... got a few things to sort out at the moment.........................



.

"Finite"....? :eek1

hmmm... thats prob where i been going wrong..... i always thought Luck was a Renewable Resource....


(but i take your point.... and yes i did learn a thing or two on this trip....... )


.

so the bike was laying on its side.... pointing the wrong way down a steep, greasy, rocky eroded hill...

i had a bruised foot, bung thumb, bruised arse and thigh, and a big lump on me shin...
and a multitude of other minor bruises and scratches...

it was drizzling, snow was expected, and the waterproofing on tent had decided to fail... :eek1

i was about 7km from a larger track that was a dead end road, which at this time of year,
and with this weather would have absolutly no traffic.. :huh

life was good............

given the wet clay and the angle of the bike it took a few go's to stand her up..

i inspected the damage...

snapped off mirror,
bent barkbusters,
snapped off left boot exhaust heat guard,
snapped off front right indicator
and a stack more scratches...

i was surprised, the windscreen was scratched but not broken..

headlight and instrumentation all looked ok too...

i figured i should find out if she'd re-start.....she did...

but she was pointing down-hill


i didnt want to take her back down to the last flat spot to turn around, as
i had made it a fair way up this stretch... there was still prob 20-30 metres to go up to the next flatter bit...


there was a lot of drops trying to turn her around... i'd gotten her kinda almost sideways, but it had started bucketing down...

another drop.... and she'a almost upside down.... i'm kinda physically buggered.... i decide to unpack her a bit to get a bit lighter...

since is raining pretty hard, i take tent and struggle on foot to getup this section of hill... i keep walking for a few hundred metres
until i find a bit of a clearing and set-up tent in the rain... i'm figuring i'm not gonna be able to get bike out today.....

i go back down to bike and get therm-a rest, drinking water and a few other things from the bike as a river of muddy water flows down the hill and under the bike....
then climb back up to tent and escape the rain for a while...

i pull out my phone to see it i can get an update on the weather... phone is dead....:huh

i sit in the tent contemplating... the roof starts dripping onto the floor...:eek1

a lot goes thru your head while you're soaking wet, sitting in a leaking tent, battered and bruised, 80kms from anywhere, waiting for snow with no way out..

Your ride report reminds me why I love riding, and hate the rain. You have many great pics with your bike(s) as it should be, and some crappy weather. It all adds up to adventure that's for sure. When you scripted the Roo to get run over and your lying in the rain, was it like "Hey get the camera...hurry before I stop bleeding."

Glad your okay in your last fall, but hell dude be careful and don't die from hypothermia! Great report!

Damn, I was hoping for a heroic escape. You do make things "interesting"
Keep 'm coming

Very smart move! Thinking before you act is a sign you did not bang your head up too badly!

I have been with you on this one! Glad to see you are still posting!

I've been trying to send some of my remaining luck your way! I have yet to be convinced it is a "renewable resource" thou, but it sounds like you will be doing (or have done) some testing of the limits on this theory.

yeah kinda

i rememba givin Whitta orders... get a few shots of the bike from different angles... oh and go see if you can find the roo and get a shot of that... and maybe one of it with me or the bike in the background....

gotta think about the ride report in these instances



.


.

so, i've been debating for a few months what to do with this next part of the trip... should i just skip over the finer
detail and move on... thats easy.. and was appealing for a long time...

then i figured naa.. i'd go into minute detail...

and i did just start typeing the detail... but in the end i just want to get on with the next bit of the story...

so..

i ended up getting a small bit of charge in phone... which was pretty quickly used up with phone telling me about missed calls and messages...

i ended up talking to a bloke in the State Emergency Service... I told him i wasnt injured or in dire trouble... but if it snowed i would be
since there was now half an inch of water in the base of my tent...and i'd rather have a chat to him now than when/if this blow out to an emergency

he said he'd give me a call back in a few mins...

in the meantime i got a call from inmate Philmeup (who you all know from earlier rides in this thread)
he said he'd get some stuff together and head up to Licola... (dont forget the beer Phil!)

spoke to the SES guy again and he said some Forrestry guys were coming out near here to check some stuff at an
emergency airstrip nearby... and they would pick me up from the main track 6 km up ahead...
they said there was no way they were coming down my track in their 4wd... i'd have to walk out..

so bike was left sideways across the track on her side... panniers 50m further up the track... helmet at the next landing..

i pulled out 2 drybags from the panniers... put a pair of dry jeans, socks, runners and t-shirts etc in one,
sleepingbag, some nuts, tuna, phone, gps etc in the other..

i took off my soaked riding pants, put on some dry thermal long-johns and waterproof overpants grabbed my half full waterbottle
and limped off up the hill in the rain..

the 6km took i dunno... prob 1.5 hours... it rained the whole way... but timing was perfect..
the forrestry guys rocked up exactly the same time as me...

they did the proper medical checks for hypothermia etc... i got out of my wet gear and into my spare dry stuff...
and with a thermos of warm tea i got in the back of the 4wd for a nice dry warm trip back to Licola... top blokes those 2!

i wasnt back in Licola long... just enough time to pay for the cabin again, do some paperwork with the forrestry guys
and get the boots in front of the heater when Phil rocked up..

awww that beer was good...

so was the hot shower...

i couldnt sit on a toilet thou..

next day we did a run into Heywood to get some supplies... and lined up a few guys to come out the next day for a bike rescue mission....

so the next day 5 of us headed off out into the forrest.... in a 4wd with a trailer carrying a dirtbike... forget what it was... suzuki i think...

anyway we got to the start of my track, unloaded the bike, unhitched the trailer and the guy who's bike
it was (who'd placed fairly high in a few APC rallys etc),geared up and
buggered off down the track to check out the situation while we drove in at a slower pace...

over the radio we heard he'd got there... and asked where my keys were... pocket of bike pants in the tent was my reply...
hmm he said... there's an inch of water in your tent...

we got to my camp and jumped out... to the sound of a bike comin up the hill.... didnt sound like mine....
Phil swore it was... and sure enough over the hill came my bike....
(funny how your bike sounds different when your not on it)

i packed up wet tent etc... and was a little concerned about how bike was getting out the rest of the way...

when i asked this question... of course everyone looked at me with blank looks and said without
any thought that anything else was an option and said..' your riding it out'..

hmm..

confidence had taken a beating... but didnt really have a choice... and i spose it would perhaps give me just a tiny bit of credibility...


so i pulled on the cold wet helmet that had spent 2 nights out in the rain...


and rode out the last 6kms without stopping....

we loaded both bikes onto the trailer for the last 70-odd km back to Licola..

Again the beer was good...


i still couldnt sit on a toilet...:eek1


Phil stayed again that night.... and we spent the evening re-attaching indicators, straightening barkbusters and fixing other bits n pieces...

the next day we were off as it was saturday and tonight we had to get up to central Victoria for Whitta's birthday bash....

Phil left about an hour earlier than me and headed back thru Melbourne to pick up his missus...
i headed off along a decent dirt road towards Jamieson (without any plans to take short-cuts)..

Good one GA, what an adventure

Cheers Terry

Shit Happens!:eek1

It's time for a new tent.

it was a fairly slow ride for a while till i got back into a bit of a rhythm...

the road climbed up into the fog...







bike seemed fine...




the fog got thicker...




until i popped out thru the top of it..




the sun and fog/cloud made for a pretty special ride..




.





'



i came out at Jamieson... beautiful little town, hit the bakery for a warming pie and coffee...

then tagged along with 3 fella's on loaded up orange bikes around lake eildon... until they buggered off up a track into the hills...

then on thru Seymour, across to bendigo and onto Whitta's place for a feed, beerrs...and of course a good fire...




next day was just ridin home...

i got home and checked out my butt... big black bruise the size of a dinner plate on me bum and leg...

foot was still black too...


slept like a baby that night...

At least your home safe & in one piece

I hope I did not jinx ya with my tale earlier..............................I am glad to hear all worked out ......but I've been feeling for ya.

Good that you got back on the bike and rode it out........necessary psychological therapy......your mates had it right!

You look after yourself now, eh (Canadian eh)!